The directors of UNCUT GEMS and GOOD TIME discuss their favorite cinematic fathers, the all-time best New York movies, and why they consider filmmaking inherently pathological.

Get to know the acclaimed Danish Norwegian director, whose latest film, SENTIMENTAL VALUE, is one of the year’s most buzzed-about releases. In the following interview, Trier explores his touchstone themes of time and memory, his connection to modernist filmmakers like Alain Resnais and Federico F...

Find out why author Grady Hendrix calls Ringo Lam “the mad dog of Hong Kong filmmaking” and says that watching one his movies “is like getting a punch to the face.” In the following introduction, Hendrix explores Lam’s unique contribution to the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, relating how he use...

Learn why curator and author Terri Simone Francis calls Jessie Maple a woman who “contained multitudes” in the following introduction. Not only was Maple a tireless advocate for Black independent film—running a cinema out of her Harlem basement—and the first African American woman to become a uni...

Sofia Coppola discusses growing up in a household of legendary cinephiles, the works that opened her eyes to the possibilities of moviemaking, and the films she wants to share with her own children.

In the following introduction, Richard Linklater explores the atmosphere of artistic freedom that drew him to the French New Wave, the subject of his new film NOUVELLE VAGUE. In their pursuit of unfettered personal expression, Linklater sees the directors of that era as the creators of the protot...

The author and filmmaker on a lifetime of moviegoing

In NOUVELLE VAGUE, Richard Linklater recreates the artistic adventure that gave rise to one oft the most radical and influential films of all time: Jean-Luc Godard’s BREATHLESS. Watch Linklater introduce this foundational classic of the French New Wave, a risk-taking work of personal expression t...

What makes Howard Hawks’s films “some of the most purely pleasurable movies in the history of cinema”? In this introduction, critic Imogen Sara Smith explores the Hollywood legend’s approach to improvisation, blending genres, overlapping dialogue, and keen interest in human behavior and interaction.

The following interview with scholar Richard Peña was recorded in 2024.

Charles Burnett is an unsung master of American cinema who led the way for black independent filmmakers to tell their stories on-screen with poetic-realist revelations like KILLER OF SHEEP and TO SLEEP WITH ANGER. In this original documentary, Burnett joins another trailblazing African American d...

This introduction by critic and author Grady Hendrix was created in 2023.

Learn why programmer Dennis Lim considers Edward Yang one of the most important filmmakers of the late twentieth century in this introduction to the Taiwanese New Wave director’s essential body of work. Across a small but potent filmography, Yang charted the complex history of his time—as Taiwan ...

What does it mean to call a movie “Altmanesque”? For critic Sean Fennessey, host of “The Big Picture” podcast, the term stands for “the undoing of everything we expect from a Hollywood movie.” In the following introduction, Fennessey explores Altman’s early roots in television, his innovative use...

Friends of Robert and Kathryn Altman reminisce about their unique New York home.

Get to know Hong Kong action legend Sammo Hung, who put his own stamp on martial-arts cinema both in front of and behind the camera. In the following interview, recorded in 2024, Hung revisits his training at the China Drama Academy, reflects his early work as a stunt performer for King Hu, and e...

In the following conversation, recorded remotely in 2020, filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Ari Aster discuss the mission, evolution, and ongoing work of The Film Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving motion-picture history that Scorsese established in 1990.

Get to know body-horror master David Cronenberg, the director of THE SHROUDS. In the following interview, Cronenberg discusses his vision of the body’s inseparable unity with the mind, how personal grief informed his latest film, the appeal of conspiracy theories, and the role of longtime collabo...